I was reasonably busy at work early in the week, but took off Thursday and Friday. I was off to Pittsburgh (actually, I flew up Wednesday evening) for the National Storytelling Conference. Most people from this area drove up, but I'd gotten a reasonable air fare and I'd far rather spend under an hour on a plane than deal with at least four hours in a car. The time is probably a wash when you factor in airport waiting time, but it's a lot less stressful for me.
Anyway, the conference didn't start until Thursday evening this year. But I spent the day Thursday at a master class with Elizabeth Ellis. Her subject was "Facing Your Fears." I signed up for the class more because I wanted to see what an all day session with her was like than for the subject matter. It was reasonably interesting, but I'm not sure how useful it was. It's always a bit weird when you have to choose a partner you don't really know early in the day and then work with them throughout the day. My partner and I weren't really on the same wavelength, so that may be why I'm not sure how useful it was. But sometimes things turn out to be inspiring down the road.
The Thursday evening reception was a blast. It was at the Children's Museum and we got to play with all the exhibits. I wasn't really excited by all the Mr. Rogers stuff, since I never watched his show. But I loved the optical illusions. My favorite exhibit was one which involved puppets that you controlled with joy sticks and buttons. And, oh yeah, the socializing was nice and the food was decent, too. I should mention that I met a guy who runs a storytelling museum in Poland - a nice contact for my upcoming trip there.
I didn't go to as many workshops as I have at some previous conferences. Of the ones I went to, the best was Gail Rosen's on combining folk tales with personal stories. I'm not sure I'd ever really do the sort of interweaving she had us working on, but I might. And she was extremely well-organized, which is impressive because she had way too many people for the size of the room. The other two workshops I made it to were less impressive. One was competent but a bit too lectury, while the other was very different from how it had been advertised. I suppose it provided a good lesson on the role of expectations.
There was one session where I'd sort of planned to go to a workshop, but got too caught up in a conversation. I played hookey more deliberately from a couple of other things (one general session and the membership meeting) because I really needed to get out for a good long walk. I did make it to all of one general session (with PBS documentarian Rick Sebak, who was interesting but only marginally relevant to storytelling) and part of this morning's general session (a panel on the future of storytelling). I also went to two swaps. I told a Chelm story at the food-related swap and "Why I'm Not a Millionaire" at the work-related swap. And I got to two of the fringe events - Marie Winger's "Fairytale Fugue" and Judith Black's "The Fading Scent of Pussy." The latter, a mixture of rant and story about older women in our culture, was a definite highlight of the conference for me. The other highlight was the regional concert. And, oh yeah, all the hanging out with other tellers and chatting that I did. I even came away with serious inspiration for two projects. Now, time to work on those... that's another matter.
Next year in Saint Louis.
Copyright 2006 Miriam H. Nadel